Using Her Campus to search the term “cultural appropriation” brings 2241 pages worth of results, as of January 5, 2017. Obviously not every single one of these results relates directly to the controversial issue, but it is worth noting that tens of thousands of articles have been written by young college women navigating through the complex terrain of privilege and oppression, just within the past few years.
Five pages of articles is nothing to the two thousand plus pages available, but honestly, no one looks past the first few pages in a search, and many of the search results stem from several years back when the conversation wasn’t as prominent, so let’s focus on the articles more immediately available to users within the past election cycle.
Not surprisingly, most of these articles relate to elements of beauty, fashion, and music that are culturally appropriated; the articles of culture that are most visible to us. In fact, within the first five pages, a little more than half the articles were specifically written to explain what not to wear during Halloween. Many of these articles operated under the same format:
1. A brief explanation about what many of us typically do on Halloween (or in our daily lives)
2. A brief explanation on why we should stop doing those things
3. A brief introduction to the populations whose livelihood we consume when we appropriate elements of their culture
4. Alternatives to our routine
I am not sure this article will be written any differently.
Most of us in college are well aware of terms like “cultural appropriation.” With communities of color gaining greater traction in their activism, the voices of minorities are being heard more often and more loudly than ever before. Take the most recent example of a fashion industrial giant being criticized for their blatant appropriation of beauty standards (search “cultural appropriation Marc Jacobs” if you’re not sure where to start).
On the other side of the coin, however, the voices of traditionalists are strengthening their grip on the dialogue to a near stranglehold (not that their grip had ever really been loosened). They too fight over the symbols of a culture they feel has been taken from them wrongfully by ungrateful and undeserving folk.
When I was looking through the Her Campus results, it was obvious that many of the articles written on the topic were designed to address the culture we live in: one in which appropriation occurs at every turn but is largely invisible to the majority. Almost every single one of these articles, especially those related to the visible aspects of our cultures, started with a basic introduction: “you are being offensive, and because you have never had to worry about it, you never noticed, so let me take the time to stop you.”
It is no surprise that many of the articles related to cultural appropriation are related to Halloween or hairstyles or makeup: not only is Her Campus involved with the daily aspects of our lives, but these elements of appropriation are easily noticeable, and with extremely minor adjustments, easily resolved. In fact, almost every single article that offered an alternative to our routine basically told us to just not do something. Amazingly, here is a solution to the world’s problems that asks you to do nothing. It’s easy to skip on the Sexy Dragon Lady costume at the costume store and take the Tina Belcher outfit instead, as one article advises.
The issues of cultural appropriation are incredibly complex, and despite the tens of thousands of articles Her Campus and other organizations like it have written, many of us still cannot distinguish cultural appreciation from cultural appropriation, which may be why introductory articles are so popular and common. I am no expert either, which is why I will avoid defining the term and leave it to the writers who already included it in their research.
Let me interrupt myself here and say that I am not criticizing these articles. For many readers, these articles may have been the first time that they were ever confronted with the notion of privilege (they certainly were for me when I first saw the “We’re a culture, not a costume” campaign). It also helps that such articles exist in a personalized and accessible space. In times when we still read articles written by journalists, stemming from CNN to the Washington Post, about how cultural appropriation infringes on the freedom of speech and expression or how safe spaces are designed to protecting crybaby millennials from the real world, these articles are obviously needed. Similarly, these articles may need to become more widespread now that we are less than three weeks away from inaugurating Trump and validating the views of his supporters.
But as Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Sympathizer, writes in a succinct observation of the “culture wars,” cultural appropriation marks a single component of a deep and difficult history, one that forces groups to develop different ways of navigating through the world. This includes what is seen, like food and beauty, and what is not seen, like beliefs and institutions. While we constantly criticize the first set in mainstream media, we are more hesitant to criticize the second set.
Like the article that address the first, Viet Thanh Nguyen offers alternatives to our routine. But his solutions consist of tasks that are immeasurable, time consuming, and require considerable empathy, patience, and risk:
“First, recognize the history of economic appropriation that makes possible cultural appropriation. Without such a recognition, we will continue to fight the wrong battle. Though it has been important for political progress in this country to organize around cultures and identities, these types of struggles won’t fundamentally change how some people benefit from an economic system built on racial discrimination and many others don’t.”
“Second, engage in careful and curious conversation with people different from ourselves, both in terms of demographics and ideas.”
“Third, accept criticism. People of all sides revert to human nature by seeing the failures of their opponents and not their own side. Examining ourselves and acknowledging our mistakes and excesses is difficult, but without doing so, it is too easy to look down on others without realizing that we do many of the same things we accuse others of doing.”
“Fourth, practice solidarity. Reject the politics of division that have existed in this country since the 17th century…”
Many of the articles I saw on the first pages of the search address these issues, but I kept seeing the same conversation over and over: the basic introduction that explains why stealing an identity is wrong. While important, the practices valued by Viet Thanh Nguyen and other activists offer us ways that we can challenge the dominant conversation and our own ways of being. Her Campus provides many writers, including myself, the platform to do so. Using the approach of Viet Thanh Nguyen, and other activists and people of color, we can consider the iceberg underneath the surface, even for topics like cultural appropriation.